"Pono, the Neil Young-endorsed Kickstarter project, is drawing more and more pledges. Now past the $2 million mark (with an expected goal of $800K), this project aims to create a audiophile friendly FLAC player along with its ecosystem (and by that they mean their own music store and syncing application).

The device itself features 2 audio outputs, one 'specially designed for headphones' and the other 'specifically designed for listening on your home audio system'. The player is controlled by an LCD touchscreen, and its triangular 'Toblerone' shape makes it easy to hold it upright with one hand or to lay it flat on surfaces. The player, which has 64GB of internal memory, comes together with a 64GB microSD card.

The board and its components, as well as a 'pre-prototype' model, are pictured in the project's Kickstarter page.

Re:I have a better idea(Score: 3, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Friday March 14 2014, @03:23PM

I'm not going "full Stallman", I want something that's simple to use and doesn't cost any money (besides the initial purchase price of course). Back in the old days, when you bought a component stereo, you set it up, and you were done: you could tune into any FM radio station you wanted for free, as long as your antenna could pick it up. You didn't have to worry that the radio maker wouldn't let you listen to a certain station because the station hadn't paid them off. And you didn't have to worry about having an ugly, messy-looking pile of electronics linked together by a bunch of cables (the cables were all hidden behind the devices, and you left them plugged in, rather than messing with them every time you wanted to play some music), or having to use a different device (that you might want to use for other things besides playing music) and then having to plug that into some stupid "dock".

It seems like there should be a market for a device that plugs into your stereo amplifier and lets you tune into any internet radio station you want, which fits in with your stereo, is easy to use, and isn't a device of some other kind that's been repurposed and needs to be "docked" (and then undocked when you want to use it for something else, like a simple phone call) (don't forget, Android devices can't be docked; I've never seen docks for any Android phones). Instead, the only things I've seen are either 1) discontinued (namely the Roku SoundBridge someone else mentioned) or 2) only let you listen to stations the radio maker wants you to listen to, which is bullshit.